Thursday, August 4, 2011

This is counter to recent trends in newspapering: TTimes Community News, a division of the Los Angeles Times Media Group, announced this morning that it will launch new weekly publications for Pasadena and the nearby San Gabriel Valley.The Pasadena Sun will make its print debut this Friday and plans to cover the towns of Pasadena, South Pasadena and San Marino. On Sunday the Sunday Valley Sun will appear, serving the San Gabriel Valley. It will get some of its content from the neighboring La Canada Valley Sun, along with the new Pasadena Sun.

Both papers will be free weeklies that will distribute through news racks and in local businesses.

The newspaper group also said that the group plans on increasing the geography covered by its Coastline Pilot. Right now the paper concentrates on Laguna Beach, but will now broaden its coverage to the communities of Laguna Niguel and Aliso Viejo.

Print newspapers, how retro.

(It is pretty clear that these papers are still in the launch phase: the website for the Pasadena Sun currently looks like an exercise in white space.)

I'll give you a couple of reasons for this: 1) built in dissatisfaction with the results being gotten by advertisers - this allows your reps to say that they have created a new solution to their marketing needs; 2) start-up time - reps can go in and soft sell now, create relationships and gather information that will pay off when good times return.

Of course, no start-up can survive a prolonged economic downturn, so there are risks to launching in this environment. But I've always believed that you build market share in tough times, and build profits in good times.

New website location for TNM

If you are reading this it is no doubt because you are reading an archive story from Talking New Media. You should be made aware that the site has moved to a new, permanent address: TalkingNewMedia.com